HUFFINGTON
06.17.12
LION & WHEEL, LLC
FEATURE_TITLE
such an actor after Mills’
agent, Rich Klubeck of United
Talent Agency, spotted Ewan
McGregor at the ski lift in Park
City during Sundance. “Rich
pitched him the whole script
on the gondola,” Van Hoy says.
Rudin helped arrange a
meeting with Christopher
Plummer in New York, and
before long the film was financed to the tune of $3.4
million, thanks to an injection of cash from Olympus
Pictures. “It was very intimate,” Knudsen says of the
shoot. “The actors never
used their trailers. They
were always on the set, and
I think that was a refreshing
experience for them.”
Beginners debuted at the
Toronto International Film
Festival in September 2010,
where Focus Features picked
it up. The distributor was
hoping to repeat the success it had just enjoyed with
The Kids Are All Right, Lisa
Cholodenko’s film about a
lesbian couple thrown into
turmoil when one partner
has a heterosexual affair.
That movie hit theaters in
July, a time when multiplexes
are dominated by aliens and
vampires, and caught fire at
the box office, earning $20.8
The cast and crew
of Braden King’s
Here traveled
cross-country
during production
of this landscapeobsessed road film,
the first American
feature to be shot
in Armenia.